biscuit gallery PHANTOM
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Hal Osawa Solo Exhibition
“PHANTOM”
biscuit gallery, tokyo / solo exhibition
PHANTOM
Hal Osawa
2026.11.14 [Sat] – 11.29 [Sun]
This November, biscuit gallery presents “PHANTOM,” a solo exhibition by Hal Osawa.
Osawa has taken part in the three-person show “Rhapsody of Phantoms” in 2023, in “grid3” in 2024 and in “emerge” in 2025, and this is the first solo exhibition held in our gallery space.
Hal Osawa was born in Tokyo in 1997, graduated from the Department of Oil Painting, Tama Art University, and completed a graduate program in oil painting at Kyoto University of the Arts. Working through reproduction technologies such as photocopiers and translation systems, Osawa has developed the shifts and noise that emerge there into painting. The series onomatopoeia and Lost and Trigger come out of this practice.
The exhibition centres on the first video installation the artist has made.
Artist Statement
One of the starting points for the installation work 〈through〉 was an experience I had while speaking with an artist from Papua New Guinea in Germany. She was talking about “colonization,” but at the time I did not know the word and misunderstood it as a conversation about “coronavirus.” Although we were imagining completely different meanings, our expressions, backchannel responses, and tones of voice made it feel as though the conversation was still working.
This experience made me question whether misunderstanding can simply be seen as a failure of communication. Because I did not know one word, the history and experience connected to colonialism fell outside my perception. I became interested in how misunderstanding can become more serious when it is connected to prejudice, historical differences, or relations of power.
At the same time, misunderstanding cannot be completely removed from human communication. In Sputnik Sweetheart, Haruki Murakami writes that “understanding is always no more than the sum of our misunderstandings.” We do not receive another person’s words exactly as they are. We construct meaning through voice, facial expression, gaze, body, memory, culture, and history.
I call the phenomenon in which different interpretations do not coincide, yet communication continues and another meaning emerges between them, “Yokai” ( 余解 ). If understanding is where meanings intersect, and misunderstanding is where meanings diverge, Yokai is what can emerge while those meanings remain misaligned.
In the video components of 〈through〉, I ask people with different mother tongues, “What did you believe in when you were a child?” They answer in their own languages. I then lip-sync each speaker’s voice, while inserting footage of my own reactions as a listener and fragments of the speaker’s eyes, mouth, gaze, and gestures.
Voice, body, gaze, facial expression, pauses, and reactions that originally belonged to one conversation are separated and rearranged across different bodies and moments in time. As a result, the relationships between speaker, listener, voice, and body become unstable.
Through 〈through〉, I question what allows us to believe that we have understood another person. I am interested in the moment when we fill in missing information with our own experience and create a meaning that may not fully belong to either person. This unstable space between understanding and misunderstanding is where I locate the possibility of “Yokai.”
2026 Hal Osawa
Artist
Hal Osawa
b. 1997, Tokyo
Born in Tokyo in 1997. Graduated from the Department of Oil Painting, Faculty of Art and Design, Tama Art University in 2020, and completed the Graduate Program in Oil Painting, Department of Fine and Applied Arts, Graduate School of Arts, Kyoto University of the Arts in 2022. Selected solo exhibitions include “『いま』『ここ』にしかない” (Ginza Tsutaya Books Art Wall, Tokyo, 2025), “ERROR” (MEDEL GALLERY SHU, Tokyo, 2022) and “MtK+ vol.10 Hal Osawa” (MtK Contemporary Art, Kyoto, 2022). Group exhibitions include “Seen Un-Seen” (LIA Leipzig International Art Programme, Leipzig, 2025), “emerge” (biscuit gallery, 2025), “grid3” (biscuit gallery, 2024), “Rhapsody of Phantoms” (biscuit gallery, 2023) and “KUA ANNUAL 2022: in Cm｜Ghost, Labyrinth, Multiverses” (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, 2022). Art fairs include ART FAIR TOKYO 2023 and 2025, ARTISTS’ FAIR KYOTO 2023, and ART OSAKA 2024 (solo presentation).
Creates works that visualize the ambiguity of value by reproducing digital replicas through analog means. Main series: onomatopoeia and Lost and Trigger.
Opening Events
A talk event with guest artist Kohei Yamada will be held at the gallery from 16:00 on Saturday 14 November 2026, the first day of the exhibition.
An opening reception follows from 16:30 – 19:00 at the same venue. No reservation is required. Please feel free to drop by.
INFORMATION
ExhibitionHal Osawa Solo Exhibition “PHANTOM”
DatesSaturday 14 November – Sunday 29 November 2026
HoursThu–Sun 13:00 – 19:00 (closed Mon–Wed)
TalkSaturday 14 November 2026, from 16:00 / Guest: Kohei Yamada (artist)
ReceptionSaturday 14 November 2026, 16:30 – 19:00
Venuebiscuit gallery (Shinjuku, Tokyo)
AddressMatsui Building 8F, 3-32-10 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-0022
AdmissionFree
Contactinfo@biscuitgallery.com
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